Does anybody have any experience with the book "Inspired 3d Character Setup"? How good of a job does it do of teaching character rigging, constraints, and skinning? Does it teach you how to rig a full biped character from start to finish successfully?

I'm considering purchasing this book, but I haven't heard much about it. Is there another book people recommend?

Thanks for the advice. I'm getting into rigging in Maya and looking for some good rigging/skinning material to learn from.

steveblake

04-23-2003, 10:36 AM

It's a good solid book, but with maybe a little too much theory. However it does have loads of information and lots of pretty pictures. So yes, I can recommend it, as it does go through a whole character setup.

So far the only other good book I've seen is Maya 2 character animation (actually maya's rigging tools haven't changed very much since v2).

However first of all, If you have a time (or a fast connection) I'd zip over to digital tutors (http://www.digital-tutors.com/digital_tutors/maya/index.htm) where they have several comprehensive quicktime movies explaining the techniques of rigging in quite a lot of depth.

For more video tutorials try www.3dbuzz.com
or go to www.highend3d.com and look for their maya resources

Hope this helps!

:)

SirRender

04-23-2003, 04:54 PM

Thank you Steve. That is very informative and helpful.

dmcgrath

04-23-2003, 08:09 PM

Steve gave you the best answer. The book is really helpful, but don't neglect your online resources.

http://www.boris3d.de/tutorials.html

steveblake

04-24-2003, 09:57 AM

nice linkage dmcgrath!

I just wanted to add that last night I counted the number of specific pages in the Insipred book devoted to character setup as being 82 (out of a total of about 300).

Though it may seem fewer than you'd think, the rest of the book is crammed full of information that'd be very helpfull for any beginner. There's also interviews and tips about designing characters etc.

So, on one hand you have 80 great pages of setup information, with 220 more covering the non-specifics of rigging a character. On the other, experienced or semi-experienced riggers may find it more usefull to supliment the book by pulling apart some of great free rigs that people have kindly made available online (like these: Melvin (http://www.geocities.com/danmanscrank/index.html), the Autorig v2.02 (http://www.markbehm.com/tools.html) mel (nice automatic setups), Ikjoe (http://www.vfs.com/~m07goosh/FreeStuff.htm) and the Setup machine sample rigs (http://www.anzovin.com/setupmachine/TSMmayarigs.html),

jackkhouri

04-24-2003, 08:14 PM

personnaly i read the book and i find it to be helpfull on some stuff but not worth the price!

The characters they make you build is way too data heavy to have an enjoyfull time to animate (too slow)

as a general rule you should try to stand clear as much as possible from expression they tend to be Heavy!!!

anyway usualy most of the standard stuff done from expresions could be donne from simple connections and even drivin key!

the best bet for learning rigging is like steveblake said from grabbing already rigged characters and do a little of reverse ingeniring! You should grab those great characters from (melvin and ikjoe). their fun to take apart ...

well hope i<m making a bit of sence !

later jack

p.s.: cgtalk has great rigging resources too just look at some old threads

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